The past three years at Joe Zeff Design have been supersonic. We've increased staffing from three to eight, and watched our revenues grow as publishers, corporations and universities came calling for iPad apps. We even hired a creative director, Neil Jamieson, to enable company president Joe Zeff to back away from his computer and spend more time pursuing new clients.
The industry is changing. Fast. Our revenues have slowed as many of our existing clients — with our help — have started building their own apps using Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. New clients aren't calling for design and production; instead they need help with strategy, implementation and business development. We still make apps, but increasingly our role is to help others make their own apps even better.
JZD is forced to change, too. One change is that we will no longer employ a full-time creative director, and, regrettably, Neil is no longer part of Joe Zeff Design.
It’s through no fault of his own. In his five months here, Neil injected new ideas and inspiration into apps for Fast Company, Notre Dame, AARP and other clients. We had hoped that adding a creative director to our team would bring in significantly more creative opportunities, but unfortunately that didn’t happen.
We hope to involve Neil in future projects based on his availability. That said, we expect that he will quickly settle elsewhere, given his incredible range that extends well beyond designing apps. Feast your eyes on the infographic he created for JZD here. And see the rest of his work at njamieson.com.
Meanwhile, Joe Zeff Design awaits your next project, whether it involves design, production, strategy, implementation or business development — or all of the above. Our team remains otherwise intact, led by president Joe Zeff and supported by Josh Penrod, Ed Gabel, Ian Brown, Emily Ragle and Jacky Roeland.
We continue to pursue new ways to leverage the popularity of tablet devices, and will share our latest thinking at TabTimes’ Tablet Biz Conference & Expo next week in New York City. Joe joins Wells Fargo, General Electric and Morningstar to provide insights on app development for large corporations.